SEO: what is it and how to improve it to be found

Whether you’re a blogger, coach, makeup artist or e-commerce business, you need to be easily found on Google. Loads of people find us on Google every day, thanks to our efforts to make our website SEO friendly.

But what does it actually mean?

What is SEO anyway?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It’s a set of actions and settings that let Google easily scan your website and show it to people who are actively looking for someone like you. It’s usually a mix of keywords your content is rich in, your images descriptions and even your links.

How to get started with SEO

What I always recommend is to get Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. It shows you what are the things you need to improve on your website, post, or product in your store to be found on Google easier.

It even helps you set up your post for social sharing, so that when people share your new post on Facebook or Twitter it’s super easy for them.

It will teach you what to look out and think about when trying to get a better SEO score.

Boost your SEO score with those few simple changes

It’s not difficult to make your website Google friendly, but it may take a few changes in your workflow or content. It’s always best to start with these things:

Create new, relevant content consistently

Google “crawlers” are those tiny programs that scan your website every now and then. They decide if your website is alive and well. If you create new, relevant content on regular basis, they will tell Google that your website is worth finding.

Use keywords properly

When creating blog posts, choose a few relevant keywords and use them often enough throughout the post.

Yoast SEO will help you with that, by showing you how often have you used your keyword and is it enough. By using the chosen keyword at least a couple of times throughout your post, you’ll show Google this post is on this particular topic.

Don’t overdo it though! It all has to make sense and read well.

Create keywords-rich titles

Using keywords in titles is also super important! When writing a blog post, try to rearrange words so that your keyword is at the very front. For example, when I was writing a post about the secret ingredient of branding, I started with this title:

the very front. For example, when I was writing a post about the secret ingredient of branding, I started with this title:

The secret ingredient of branding: personality But ended up with this one: Personality: secret ingredient to an irresistible brand

Because my main keyword for this post was “personality”.

Add ‘alt text’ to your images

‘Alt text’ stands for “alternative text” and it’s the text you see instead of an image, when you open an email without downloading the images.

It’s important to use it for 2 main reasons:

If you describe your image well, it will show up in Google Images search and people can find you this way (which is awesome, especially for products!),

Alt text is used for people who are visually impaired because the software they use to read websites reads images description to them as well. This way they can understand what’s on the website. If you have an online shop, make sure you’ve taken care of this. It boosts your website accessibility score, which is super important especially in the US (they have very rigid accessibility laws!).

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Describe your products well

For SEO to be good enough, you need to include at least 500-1000 characters in your product description. Make sure you describe them well! Use keywords that are relevant and phrases people may use while searching for your products.

Using tags is also very helpful- it’s another keyword Google reads.

Don’t overcrowd your product page with text though. Use the short description to tell people about product features and add the rest of the text below the “Add to cart” button.

Use header tags

When writing a blog post or even a page on your website, use H1, H2 and H3 tags. Those are always scanned by Google crawlers and should be rich in keywords and relevant to the post/page content.

Link to other things

If you’re writing a blog post about something that’s connected to your other blog posts, link to the other one.

For example, when I write about branding strategy, I will link to my posts about your WHY, WHAT and HOW, or Season Branding Personalities: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

This tells Google I’ve got lots of content readers will be interested in once they land on my website. It also shows I keep updating my site with relevant posts.

Yoast SEO will help you find the right balance in the number of internal and external links.

Prepare your website for social media sharing

It’s important for Google that your website is social media friendly too. Prepare images that are perfect for sharing on Facebook and Twitter and write short descriptions specifically for these platforms. Then, whenever someone shares your post or product page, they will have a pre-written post + awesome image ready to go.

This gives you control over how people share your content and makes it easier for others to actually share it.

Make your content easy to read

Last but not least: don’t make it too hard for people to read your posts and pages!

– Don’t use too long sentences – Hemingway app will help you with that. – Break long paragraph up – nobody wants to read super long pieces of tiny text.– Use images to break up the text – make them relevant and always use alt text!– Use headings to break up the content and make it easier to scan the whole post or page. – Use lists and bullet points when appropriate – it’s so much easier to digest the content this way.

Ready to crush your SEO score? Change those few things and you’ll quickly notice how many more people are finding you on Google!